{"id":22514,"date":"2016-07-04T14:24:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T13:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=22514"},"modified":"2021-07-25T20:28:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T19:28:59","slug":"a-few-days-off-at-kylmaluoma-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/a-few-days-off-at-kylmaluoma-finland\/","title":{"rendered":"A few days off at Kylm\u00e4luoma, Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome is being hammered with rain and rocked by apocalyptic thunder in the middle of a huge storm. We’ve got the steady-legs down but\u00a0the thunder is still making him move,\u00a0which is\u00a0a first. We’ve retreated to a campsite for a few days, so while all of this is going on around us, we’re in a beautiful spot overlooking a lake at the\u00a0Kylm\u00e4luoma area\u00a0(N65.58525, E28.89866<\/a>) of the Hossa-Kylm\u00e4luoma camping<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Zagan

Zagan at the Hossa-Kylm\u00e4luoma Campsite in Finland<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Cavalier

Charlie keeps warm during the storm<\/p><\/div>\n

We’re about two hours drive away from the Arctic Circle, so while we aren’t actually experiencing the midnight sun here, it is light all the time (this storm is about the darkest it has been for ages) and that is playing havoc with our sleep patterns. Lack of sleep leads to grumpiness and being grumpy just isn’t any fun. So, after all the excitement of the wife-carrying championships at the weekend<\/a>, we said ‘tar-ah’ to Richard and Jenny as we’re bound to see them again, and drove three and a half hours north to this campsite.<\/p>\n

\"Finland

One of my vest tops has been sacrificed to make eye masks for sleeping. We’re at the top of the orange marker line, when we reach the line across between the eye masks, that’s the arctic circle just a bit further north we’ll have 24 hour sun.<\/p><\/div>\n

Trying to keep ahead of the black rain clouds following us up the country, we were amazed to see the landscape finally change. No longer did we just see the trees on either side of the road for mile after mile, now we had the occasional slight hill which gave us a view of all the trees around us, spanning out for miles in each direction. A quick stop at the supermarket stocked us up with provisions and gave us a chance for a nose at the local produce – I love Lidl, but I also love a ‘true’ foreign supermarket.<\/p>\n

\"Scarecrows

I have no idea – but we didn’t stop as it freaked me out<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Beer

Happy Jay with a litre can of bear beer<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Beech

This place has trees everywhere, yet you can buy twigs in the supermarket!<\/p><\/div>\n

All of those tree-filled miles of monotony were made up for in one minute when we had our first reindeer encounter. Having seen thousands of signs for moose, we finally spotted one the other day. Yesterday we passed a sign for reindeer and within half an hour there was a herd of them on the road (sorry about the shaky camera, I was so excited). Then individual ones wandering along the hard shoulder until we reached here, where we were greeted by a mother and baby reindeer walking down the road to the campsite.<\/p>\n